


this is the life of an outlaw

by postcardmystery



Category: Justified
Genre: Blood, Domestic Violence, F/M, M/M, Multi, Murder, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardmystery/pseuds/postcardmystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Remember when I was gonna be Holliday and you was gonna be Earp?” says Boyd, and Raylan raises his eyebrow, says, “What makes you think we ain’t?”</p><p>AU, Boyd's the federal marshal, and Raylan's the career criminal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is the life of an outlaw

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for rape references, domestic violence, blood, violence, and murder.

Boyd Crowder has a star on his belt and hellfire in his eyes. Boyd Crowder wears button-up shirts and shitkicker boots and a smile that no one knows how to read. Boyd Crowder is a Crowder born and raised, and, it turns out, blood doesn’t always out.

 

 

“You fuckin’  _shot_  a Dixie Mafia enforcer,” says Boyd’s boss, and Boyd shrugs, says, “Well, I asked him if he’d read his Revelations, sir.”

 

 

Here’s the thing about Harlan County: nothing ever changes.

 

 

Raylan Givens has scarred knuckles and spurs on his boots. Raylan Givens has an accent thick as treacle and his daddy’s Colt M1911 right where you can see it. Raylan Givens wears a hat that everybody knows, and he can tell you the meaning of “frontier justice.” Raylan Givens wears Latin on his back and shells about his waist, and Raylan Givens, he’s Harlan’s (mostly) undisputed king.

 

 

“You know he’s back, don’t you?” says Winona, and Raylan smiles. 

“Course I do,” says Raylan, and Winona nods, seeing it clear. (She’s a much better second in command than she ever was a wife. Well. Than  _he_  was a husband.)

“He’s gonna come after you, Raylan,” says Winona, and Raylan grins, says, “Should fuckin’ hope so.”

 

 

Boyd hit nineteen, and joined the army. Boyd hit twenty-five, and joined the Marshals. Boyd hit thirty-seven, and shot an Alabama gun-runner at point blank range.

Boyd’s thirty-eight, parking his car outside of a run-down church, and he feels nineteen all over again.

 

 

“So, boy, I heard you were the fastest draw in Texas,” says Raylan, and Boyd can’t help himself, moves to hug him first.

 

 

Boyd isn’t really a gunfighter, knew that was always going to be Raylan’s thing. Boyd likes to be holding all the cards, hoarding all the shotguns. But he got fast over the years, fast and deadly. But it’s brain that’s saved him, not his hands. 

Well. His tongue.

 

 

“This is an impressive House of God you’ve defiled here, Raylan,” says Boyd, and doesn’t pretend anything other than sarcasm. Raylan smiles, with just a little bit of an edge to it, and says, “We take what we can get ‘round here, Mister Federal Marshal.”

That should be  _Mister_  Federal Marshal to— oh,  _wait_ ,” says Boyd, entirely straight-faced, and Raylan laughs, then, says, “You ain’t too different, are ya, Boyd?”

“Maybe jus’ a little,” says Boyd, and,  _oh_ , he knows the look that Raylan’s wearing now.

 

 

The phone call doesn’t get to Boyd until 1am, scrabbling after his cell in a dark motel room, a filthy place where he can hear the cockroaches assembling in droves when he puts out the light.

“Hello?” he says, and he isn’t even a little but surprised when the voice on the end of the line says, “I’m so sorry, Marshal. It’s your brother. He’s dead.”

 

 

They let him see Ava under armed guard only. (Hmm. Maybe Raylan was right ‘bout that alleged “reputation” of his.)

“I had to,” says Ava, and he knows she’s only sorry that it’s hurting him, not for the act itself. There’s something hard as granite behind her eyes, and it makes his stomach churn to know it was his brother that put it there.

“He was beatin’ on you, wasn’t he?” says Boyd, swallowing down two decades worth of guilt, “There ain’t nothin’ to forgive, Ava-darlin’.”

He’s seen a lot of murderesses smile, but hers is the prettiest by far.

 

 

Raylan doesn’t offer his condolences, but then, that’s Raylan for you.

 

 

Life goes on.

A trucker gets drunk and rapes a girl from Harlan County, not even seventeen years old. The local PD find the trucker with most of his organs missing, and a star carved into his chest. He’s been cold for days.

“You are a self-righteous son-of-a-bitch, Raylan,” says Boyd, and Raylan’s chuckle down the phone line is not even a little bit apologetic.

“Look who’s fuckin’ talkin’,” he says, and hangs up.

 

 

Ava cooks Boyd dinner every night for a week, and it’s easy after that. He needed somewhere to live, after all, and he knows when a woman’s too good for him, knows better than when to press his suit.

“What you readin’?” she says, on one quiet June evening, and he raises his eyebrow over  _The Count of Monte Cristo_ , says, “Oh, nothin’ much.”

 

 

“Remember when I was gonna be Holliday and you was gonna be Earp?” says Boyd, and Raylan raises his eyebrow, says, “What makes you think we  _ain’t_?”

 

 

It’s the fuckin’ Givens and Bennetts that do it, the way Boyd always knew they would.

Arlo Givens is dead, and Raylan didn’t like his old man much. (At all.) But that’s not the point, that’s not the point  _at all._

It’s war.

 

 

“Put your hands up and don’t fuckin’  _test_  me, Raylan,” says Boyd, and Raylan kneels, puts his hands on his head, says, “An eye for an eye, Boyd.”

“Don’t you go subvertin’ the Word of the Lord, now,” says Boyd, his tone like ice, “and ain’t you heard the rest of that one? “Will make the whole world blind?”

“Yeah,” says Raylan, looking up, his eyes themselves Biblical, “ _good_.”

 

 

“You’re really sorta dumb, you know that?” says Ava, and kisses Boyd until his lips burn.

 

 

“It was already in the glass,” says Mags Bennett, and then Boyd is in a whole world of shit.

 

 

“Orange ain’t your colour,” says Boyd, and Raylan shows all his teeth, says, “And the star ain’t your shape.”

“I sense that we are at what you could call an ‘impasse’,” says Boyd, and Raylan taps his finger on the glass between them, that echoing Morse Code they learnt together as boys,   _Y E S_ ,  _Y E S_.

 

 

“You’re a free man,” says Boyd, and Ava, in the car behind him, waves.

“Harlan’s mine, Boyd,” says Raylan, his hand creeping up Boyd’s neck, too familiar to just be friendly, the pressure too deep to not be hostile.

“Ava misses you,” says Boyd, his voice like velvet, and as Raylan’s pupils dilate he repeats, “Harlan’s _mine_ , Boyd.”

“You’ll have to take that up with me, Raylan,” says Boyd, and crooks his finger to Ava, leans forward and catches Raylan’s bottom lip between his teeth.

 

 

Here’s the thing about Harlan County: sometimes, things change.


End file.
